Food safety is the ever-expanding global need. An important concern is the presence of bacteria and other pathogens on the surface of fresh produce. Plasmas, of course, are well-known for their strong antimicrobial properties. In the field of plasma medicine, a number of discharges have already been developed where plasma can successfully come in contact with living tissue, without damaging it, and achieve the desired rate of pathogen inactivation—usually within a few seconds of treatment. However, delivering plasma treatment to a 3-dimentional complex surface of foods, specifically of fresh produce, can be quite challenging: produce surface is complex and frequently multi-layered (e.g. a bag of spinach leaves), and the industrial processing rates are very high. For this reason, we have developed a plasma system to address this issue: plasma jet-like system where an air stream containing small droplets of water is passed through the discharge and onto the surface of produce. The key challenges, addressed in this talk, are the control of temperature of air and water passing through the discharge, and the resulting chemistry generated in the liquid and on the surface of produce. For our validation experiments we utilize E.coli, Salmonella, and Listeria with Rifampicin-induced resistance. We coat Petri dishes with Rifampicin and thus are able to repeatably control and observe the rate of initial contamination of each fresh produce sample. As validation samples, packaged or open spinach, kale, lettuce, and strawberries are inoculated with up to 108 cfu (per sample). Samples are then placed into the misting chamber, as shown in the attached image. Treatment times vary from 1 to 30 minutes in an 18” cubic chamber, simulating non-refrigerated storage.

Scale-up of non-equilibrium pulsed discharge for sanitation of whole and cut fresh fruits and vegetables

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.